The Blight of Aldeburgh

Aldeburgh went from a port receding into the North sea to fashionable resort: whatever it fancies itself as now, it still seems the former to me - a town that's neither historic and quaint but a little jaded and doesn't take afternoon tea (does no-one need refreshment between 2pm lunch and 6pm dinner?)

The impression I am left with is the ubiquitous sign threatening to fine for gull feeding - a petty council with askew priorities.

The veracious gulls could clearly be a problem and dissuading their feeding is understandable. The signs give a reason - to discourage the gulls from being pests. We all want to sit in a beach or park and eat without creatures holding us for our food. Gulls are large birds and in groups they could be vociferous. "Please don't feed the gulls" is reasonable.

But the ankle height sign goes on - gull feeding is a littering offence with a maximum find of £2500!

Why is scraps food, instantly consumed I daresay, considered litter, which is not biodegradable and not edible? Why have the council, clearly anxious to put weight behind the gull feed ban, twisted an innocent but unwanted and ill-advised act into an inappropriately named offence?

No council had the courage to name themselves - it could be one of three - for being behind this absurd byelaw.

In a recession especially, this is large sum of money - not all of us are as rich as many of Aldeburgh's bijou residents are said to be.

This is a rather small act compared to deliberate theft, abuse and attack, vandalism, fraud, drunk driving... even that the same sign proclaims dogs on the beach in season procure a much lesser but still hefty £500 fine for their owners, which also shows a very strange sense of proportion.

Think of what a debt that would be for such an inconsequential act, not worth a criminal record over.

Really this becomes a treatise against heavy fines. Why do we punish by exacting money from people who do something we don't like? Is it what we most prize, and therefore most feel the loss of, second only to freedom and dignity which are taken by prisons.

Freedom dignity are equally in us all, but money is not. Where some could pay that without feeling it, others would be in months or even years of debt, possibly even facing bankruptcy.

And why do we seek to punish? Why must wrong - whether absolute or, as here, deeply subjective - be made up to the aggrieved though an act of taking something - whether monetary, through submission to violence or loss of freedom and humiliation - to show sorrow. Why is an apology not enough?

And what of those times as here where the offence is not absolute or serious, but as here, arbitrary and contrived.

Why do we live in a world where we dissuade through threat - culminating in nuclear arms races?

It is commented on by all at the beach, and I would hazard that anyone convicted would make this national media worthy. It looses respect for the local authority who fails to provide proper facilities such as clean toilets. I went in - reluctantly - throughout the day and cut my hand on the lock, got muddy water/urine on my clothes from the floors and there was no toilet roll. Is Aldeburgh too proud to clean its toilets? I consider that the council should pay me and all the other users who had to put out with that on a peak season Saturday.

The council also provides insufficient bike parking meaning the many cycling visitors have to risk their bikes being stolen; it does not have accurate or adequate signage to Benjamin Britten's Red House or the footpath to Thorpeness.

It provides generic waste bins whose lids clump is as grating as the gull's caws, nut not the expected recycling, which ought to be mandatory for any council. Other places you can pop your cans, bottles, glass and papers in frequently spread banks around the centre. It is not providing a service, helping with litter of which it is so incensed by, and taking environment responsibility seriously.

The offence is the council's.

And what impression are we left with, as visitor or would be resident?

That this is not a place to return or cherish, which is rather sad and the opposite of what the council would hope.